. . . if Homer had really been able to educate people and make them better, if he had been able, not to imitate such matters but to know about them, wouldn’t he have had many companions who honored and love him? Protagoras Abdera, Prodicus of Ceos, and a great many others are able to convince anyone who associates with them in private that he wouldn’t be able to manage his household or city unless they themselves supervised his education, and they are so intensely loved because of this wisdom of theirs that their disciples do everything except carry them around on their shoulders. Are we to believe, then, that if Homer had been able to help people become virtuous, his companions would have allowed either him or Hesiod to wander around as rhapsodes, and wouldn’t have clung far tighter to them than to gold and compelled them to come home and live with them? And if persuasion failed, wouldn’t they have followed them wherever they went until they had received sufficient education?
Plato, Republic, Book 10, 600c-e, translated by C.D.C. Reeve
. . . Are we to conclude, then, that all poets, beginning with Homer, imitate images of virtue and of all the other things they write about, and have no grasp of truth?
Form & Function
Plato has a weird love/hate relationship with art. He was a story-teller (or poet, as much of ancient Greek story-telling was done in poetic style) before he met Socrates and became a philosopher. Thus, it makes sense he would recognize poetry, art or beauty (terms that he used both interchangeably and precisely, depending on the dialogue you’re reading) as both good and necessary for the human experience; but he also decries art as misleading and dangerous for the development of a society’s youth.
The above passage is part of Socrates explaining the relationship between art as truth and art as imitation, and their effects on society (as individual members and as a whole). Broadly speaking, Socrates (or Plato, writing as Socrates) recognized the good in using art as a technique to educate persons in a society. I take this as acknowledging that human beings are spiritual, empathic and artistic creatures, capable of communicating vastly complex ideas across a variety of mediums; and since this is an inherent aspect of human nature, it is an unavoidable quality in a society. Yet Socrates also warns against the misuse of art, citing examples by which a society might be led astray, by focusing ~ however unintentionally ~ on negative qualities and propping them up as desirable or, just as bad, desensitizing people to their undesirability.
To be clear, the quoted text does not paint a good picture of artists in general. The two persons cited, Protagoras Abdera and Prodicus of Ceos, are sophists, “paid teacher[s] of philosophy and rhetoric in ancient Greece, associated in popular thought with moral skepticism and specious reasoning.” It’s that latter part that Socrates pretty much despises, given how much of Plato’s writing involves him arguing with and tearing down sophists. By starting with Homer and quickly bringing up these sophists, Socrates creates an association between art and sophistry; and when we understand exactly how the sophists did their jobs, the connection becomes clear.
The sophists claimed to be able to teach young men arete (virtue or excellence) ~ and it was always young men, typically sons of nobles or the wealthy, those who could afford to pay for education. Socrates hated them, not so much because they taught falsehoods but because their techniques were poorly reasoned and, by teaching as they did, they instilled this poor reasoning in the minds of the young. Sophists were a cancer because their methods were just plain bad and would often lead to bad conclusions.
There’s a concept in modern architecture known as “form follows function.” Electrical engineers design power systems for buildings and machines along the path of least resistance, because the further electricity travels, the more power you need to ensure the device functions properly. The same is true when designing water and sewage systems; ventilation systems; roofing and weather protection systems; and so on. Taken to other areas, there is some debate about applicability, but that debate at least prompts the question, “What is the purpose of this thing you’ve included?” In the case of evolution, for example, form is either the result of evolution ~ an organism is trying to accomplish a specific thing and evolves a form capable of doing that thing ~ or it precedes evolution ~ an organism evolves a mutation that is, coincidentally, suited to its survival and thus helps perpetuate its genes and ensure that form persists into subsequent generations. Likewise, artists . . . tend to vary in their adherence to this concept. Some art has a clear purpose (or function) and it’s usually clear how the art’s appearance (form) conforms to that purpose. Some art has no clear purpose, existing merely because the artist wanted it to, and any form/function relationship exists purely in the mind of the audience.
I believe most art falls somewhere between these two extremes; not by necessity or design, but because most artists intend to create one thing and inadvertently end up creating something else.
Form, for Plato, exists alongside function. The form of a thing is the ideal of that thing. From what I recall ~ and I can’t find the reference at the moment, so if anyone knows the dialogue I’m referring to, please comment ~ Plato did not hold to a notion of “firsts” where mankind and the gods are concerned. That is to say, he recognized the origin stories of poets and priests because, by necessity, he was an Athenian and it was culturally appropriate to believe in the gods, but he didn’t actively promote or reject them. The closest he gets is in outlining the “imitation of appearance,” as:
- Form as made by a god.
- Individual things as made by humans.
- Paintings (or art) as made by imitators.
. . . where the first is the desired purity; the second is the practical necessity; and the third is . . . well, it’s okay; it’s unavoidable, as I said, but you shouldn’t hold it up too high, lest you allow it to corrupt your sense of what is good and just.
If you hold that gods existed before humans, then form predates function. If you hold that humans existed before gods, the reverse is true. I’m convinced Plato would reject both these claims; gods and humans, and by substitution, form and function, are inseparable.
Form & D&D
Matt Colville’s book is visually appealing. It’s well formatted with good art. The writing style is very similar to how he speaks on his YouTube channel; and for many, that was a major selling point. He’s built up a following on the basis of his ability to come across as a fun guy, the sort you could hang out with, go to the bar, have a beer and chat D&D all night long. But when you dig into the substance of it, there’s a lack of conviction. A wishy-washy-ness to the whole shebang. The whole of his work reads like it’s a collection of house rules compiled for publication but without any rationale or reasoning behind it, so you have no clue how or why he came to the rules he did. Even when he explains himself in videos, he only gives the barest hint of something he read once, something that references this other work that sort of justifies where he’s coming from.
How to be a Great Gamemaster is worse, to the point where the only good I can offer is that his videos are well produced . . . enough to acquire an audience. Where Colville takes a tepid, non-committal, “The Dude”-like approach ~ with his, “Or, you know, whatever works for you, it’s your game, just have fun,” rhetoric ~ Guy takes a condescending attitude toward the viewer. He welcomes his audience with a smile and a chuckle, but quickly goes about breaking down any sense of self-worth the viewer might have. His approach is reminiscent of certain cults whose leaders leverage their charm to slip half-truths and outright lies past the audience, planting seeds in the mind that germinate and grow under the cultivation of their personalities.
Critical Role is well organized and produced. It captures the spirit of the home game ~ at least, a certain kind of home game. It appeals to its audience on an emotional, visceral level. But there is little to no substance in it. About the only praise I can muster for Matthew Mercer ~ and I must stress that this is rightly deserved ~ is that he’s a fair DM. He doesn’t cheat on his dice rolls and that’s an example other DMs should live up to. Beyond that? Meh. His style is a personal preference, largely informed by his experience as a voice actor. His choices for house rules aren’t based on solid rational explanations, but rather on what seems “cool” to him and his players; and that’s not an inherently bad approach, but it doesn’t serve the audience to offer only the same advice as everyone else, vis-a-vis do what feels right.
Mike Mearls . . . Yeah, let’s not get into 5th Edition.
D&D & Sophistry
Are these the sophists of D&D?
Yes. Yes, I think they are, and many more besides.
In each case, though, the question of how much their form and their function interrelate is . . . something worth exploring in future posts. Because it’s useful for us, the audience and (ostensibly) the students, to understand the paradigms, core assumptions and methodologies of the teachers.
And so we come to the matter of Zak Smith, a.k.a. Zak Sabbath, of Playing D&D with Pornstars fame.
I won’t read the rap sheet. There are plenty of other sources that have done that already, that have compiled more information on the man than I care to wade into; and if the reader is really inclined to dig deeper, it’s not that difficult to find receipts concerning his past behavior.
No, I want to talk less about Zak Smith as the serial harasser and abuser, and more about Zak Smith as the sophist.
Zak Smith built his reputation on a click-bait site. Were this the only technique he employed, he probably would have disappeared from public view (or at least drifted off to an appropriately dark corner of the ‘net). Sure, he might still operate his website or his podcast, but they would be curiosities, not unlike the works of RPGPundit, Venger Satanis or Your Dungeon is Suck. Vapid. Tepid. Polished excrement, in some cases, to be sure, but excrement nonetheless.
But he did more than play D&D with pornstars. He inserted himself into online communities ~ Google+, Discord, Facebook, etc. ~ where he made friends and allies, and generally did the sorts of things that anyone with a significant online presence did. To be sure, I’m not saying that this was bad behavior; lots of us are doing the exact same thing, myself included. Where Zak was different was in how he interacted with people; his form belied his function.
That is to say . . . shit, people, we saw this coming.
Why did we allow him to endure?
I say “we” because I want to emphasize that this is a community effort. For myself, back in 2014, I came across that Twitter post by Zak and wrote a short piece about how terrible it is that this guy was representing the D&D world. I’ve since deleted my post (and many more besides) because my circumstances necessitated starting over with this blog; but the point is that the online D&D community knew about his harassment, bullying and bullshit behavior long before rape and sexual abuse came to the scene.
People defended him then, just as many are defending him now ~ although fewer than before, which is to the community’s credit, but it’s a far cry from being an overwhelming conviction.
When trying to understand how someone like Zak Smith could have endured so long in RPG circles, and why some still support him, at least part of his success makes sense if we consider Plato’s description of both artists and sophists: “… wouldn’t [their companions] have followed them wherever they went until they had received sufficient education?”
Yes. Yes they would. But what is the “education” they were receiving?
Zak Smith won an award from the RPG community for his work, A Red and Pleasant Land, in 2015. (I think there’s a second award out there but I haven’t been able to track it down.) I’ve read quite a bit about his involvement with Lamentations of the Flame Princess, to include his contributions to Veins of the Earth and Maze of the Blue Medusa. These are products that I’ve acquired and will look over when I get the time; I might post some thoughts about them, though to be honest, unless I find something actually useful, I think I prefer to lay off the “your RPG is shit” approach. It worked as a motivator when I restarted the blog but I’ve since learned that that much negativity is spiritual poison.
I cannot comment ~ unfortunately ~ on Zak’s published (i.e. for sale) works . . . but his blog is available. What can we learn from it?
Interestingly, quite a bit. When I first chanced on his work a few years ago, I was intrigued by his series, I Hit it with My Axe, being, basically, one of the earliest (if not the original) actual play podcasts. I didn’t watch past the first episode. It simply wasn’t to my liking and, as a result, I never bothered with his website. Looking at it now, I thought I’d find something to argue with, given everything else I’ve read. Among his top posts is a two-parter about earned experience and awards. The first part contains pretty much what I’ve come to expect from the general D&D community: we don’t care about experience because this isn’t a game of accountants and actuaries. But the second part surprised me. It contains a detailed examination of serial stories, or picaresques, which sheds some light on how stories unfold over a long period of time where there’s relatively little continuity from one episode to the next.
. . . at least, it would shed light on the nature of storytelling in RPGs if RPGs were about telling stories.
The rest of his writing is along these lines. He starts with poor base assumptions because, like most every other sophist in the RPG community, he hasn’t taken the time to critically examine himself, his players or his game. He’s capable of superficially examining himself, of putting on the air of having thought critically about his work and, most importantly, presenting the results in a manner that appeals to his audience.
Zak Smith is a good writer, to be sure, but it’s clear his writing is form before function.
Granted, that’s really no different from any other OSR blogger out there . . . with a few exceptions, but they haven’t won awards for their work or been courted by Wizards of the Coast as consultants for a new edition of the game. And I don’t mean to imply that we need to be on the lookout for these D&D sophists to trip up and reveal the completely awful, terrible persons that they really are . . . like, I understand the implication involved by presenting Zak in this context and talking about his work in this manner. I get that it might not look the best . . . but no, Matt Colville and Matt Mercer and Adam Koebel and even that fucking “Great GM” guy . . . no, dear reader, I beg you to avoid that association. They’re not Zak Smith.
But if someone came forward with credible accusations?
Are we ready to believe that Matt Colville might be a piece of shit? Because he’s not, at least, not so far as any of us know, right now.
But with Zak, we knew.
So what was it with this guy? How did he manage to get where he is today? How did he hang in there for so fucking long, especially when there was so much evidence that he was a complete fucking jerk?
Yes, I know, there are the usual explanations. Misogyny is part of American culture. Victim blaming is the standard. For fuck’s sake, we have a rapist sitting on the Supreme Court! Are any of us really fucking surprised that Zak was able to get away with his shit for as long as he did?
But I think there’s a little more to it than that. Like any good sophist, Zak was keenly aware of his public persona. He obsessed about it; he cultivated it; and he would run to ground anyone who put forth the slightest hint of opposition, of tarnishing his “good name.”
But he couldn’t have done it without our help.
. . . and his followers don’t correct him, that’s on them.
Final Thoughts
Now, I’m not an expert on mental health or psychology. I can’t speak to the actual, “Why?” that exists inside his head. Yes, I’ve had my run-ins with narcissistic personalities before and I recognize some of the signs. I can also do some basic fucking research and see the behavior for what it is; but I fully accept that I could be off-base on these assumptions and conclusions.
Doubting my own thoughts does not make them go away. It does not invalidate my gut reaction. And above all, it absolutely does not negate the firsthand experiences of those who have run afoul of Zak in the past. Of those who have been subjected to his ego. Those who have suffered under his abuse.
Of course, I’m not part of those circles. I’ve never interacted with him directly. I’m just a minor character in this greater drama, a member of a larger community, looking to those with power and influence and thinking to myself, “How the fuck did we let this asshat get any kind of control?”
Horatio:
Hamlet, Act I, Scene IV
He waxes desperate with imagination.
Marcellus:
Let’s follow. ‘Tis not fit thus to obey him.
Horatio:
Have after. To what issue will this come?
Marcellus:
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio:
Heaven will direct it.
No, Horatio, I’m afraid it won’t. I’m afraid that, when it comes to our demons, we’re very much on our own.
Crossing the 'Verse 